DOI Heft:
Nr. 2-3
DOI Artikel:Ławniczakowa, Agnieszka: In the Mirror of a Well: On Jacek Malczewski's self-portraits
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18904#0061
symbolic art in generał, is not to reflect the evasive, superficial, changeable phenomena going
on either in external, objective reality or the inner, subjective world of the psyche, but to get to
the essence of things and reveal more generał mental constructs through phenomenal ones.
Thus, in order to convey the notion of the artist as a creator and the worIdview by which he is
guided, to demonstrate his goals and limitations, it is necessary to conceal what can be an ob-
stacle to grasping these abstracts. As in Greek tragedy, the mask covers the fortuitous, the
changeable and the irrelevant. Yet it is never very tight, and its purpose is certainly not to
mute the sound of the individual voice. In self-portraits tackling the problem of artistic creation,
which especially in the period of interest to us, i.e. the turn of the 20th centuiy, were an attempt
at self-realisation and at presenting the artist's individual approach to the problem, we arc
aware of the continual striving to combine subjective and objective values; it is evident in the
peculiar visual intcnsity of these paintings, in the frequent combination of conscientious objecti-
vity in the rendering of at least the state of concentration and the „liberatcd" surroundings,
permeated with an atmosphere of a painter's unrestrained dream or, as in Van Gogh or Hodler,
almost clinically dispassionate description and arbitrary colour detremining the emotional
atmosphere. This quality is also manifested through the evocation of generally known mythical
structures combined with the artist's personal biography.
The reason why it so happens may be that what is rcvealed with especial clarity is that the
act of creation is an integral process occurring on two planes at a time: the creation of a work
of art, one's self-image on the one hand, and self-creation on the other. We find it highly unjusti-
fied to consider a work of art, and especially a symbolic self-portrait as something that should
be viewed ex post facto as an accomplished act, as the outcome of a priori complete self-awa-
reness, as a possible but not inevitable reflection of a finished character.
Yet another effect of the mask, which covers the glimmer and dynamism of the artist's ex-
perience, is that it also veils the most essential mystery of creation, the act of creation, which,
by analogy to God the Creator of man in his image and likeness, has a transcendental value as
Michel Tournier believes45.
Having made these reservations, we should observe that the result of creative endeavours,
45. M. Tournier., „De 1'autoportrait a rautodcatruetion" in; Uautoportrait a l'age de la pkotograpkie, op. cii., pp, 9—10.
51
on either in external, objective reality or the inner, subjective world of the psyche, but to get to
the essence of things and reveal more generał mental constructs through phenomenal ones.
Thus, in order to convey the notion of the artist as a creator and the worIdview by which he is
guided, to demonstrate his goals and limitations, it is necessary to conceal what can be an ob-
stacle to grasping these abstracts. As in Greek tragedy, the mask covers the fortuitous, the
changeable and the irrelevant. Yet it is never very tight, and its purpose is certainly not to
mute the sound of the individual voice. In self-portraits tackling the problem of artistic creation,
which especially in the period of interest to us, i.e. the turn of the 20th centuiy, were an attempt
at self-realisation and at presenting the artist's individual approach to the problem, we arc
aware of the continual striving to combine subjective and objective values; it is evident in the
peculiar visual intcnsity of these paintings, in the frequent combination of conscientious objecti-
vity in the rendering of at least the state of concentration and the „liberatcd" surroundings,
permeated with an atmosphere of a painter's unrestrained dream or, as in Van Gogh or Hodler,
almost clinically dispassionate description and arbitrary colour detremining the emotional
atmosphere. This quality is also manifested through the evocation of generally known mythical
structures combined with the artist's personal biography.
The reason why it so happens may be that what is rcvealed with especial clarity is that the
act of creation is an integral process occurring on two planes at a time: the creation of a work
of art, one's self-image on the one hand, and self-creation on the other. We find it highly unjusti-
fied to consider a work of art, and especially a symbolic self-portrait as something that should
be viewed ex post facto as an accomplished act, as the outcome of a priori complete self-awa-
reness, as a possible but not inevitable reflection of a finished character.
Yet another effect of the mask, which covers the glimmer and dynamism of the artist's ex-
perience, is that it also veils the most essential mystery of creation, the act of creation, which,
by analogy to God the Creator of man in his image and likeness, has a transcendental value as
Michel Tournier believes45.
Having made these reservations, we should observe that the result of creative endeavours,
45. M. Tournier., „De 1'autoportrait a rautodcatruetion" in; Uautoportrait a l'age de la pkotograpkie, op. cii., pp, 9—10.
51